The third placing adds to a long line of achievements in the calendar year for the athlete after he won the 1600m Stawell Gift handicap in April, came 12th in the Gold Coast Half-Marathon with a personal best of 1:07.18 in July and came 15th in the Sydney City2Surf in August.

Threlfall said he needed to crack the 65-minute bracket in the half-marathon before he attempted a full marathon under the instruction of his long-time coach in Bendigo, John Bourke.

Originally hailing from Bendigo, Threlfall began taking his running seriously as a 16-year-old after realising his size was not suited for Australian Rules football.

At 20 he joined the Victorian Athletics League pro circuit and instead of getting ahead of himself, stuck to a training regime which would see him peak between the 28 to 32 age bracket.

‘‘When you’re 20 all you want to do is win every race, but you have to be patient,’’ Threlfall said.

‘‘At that time my coach said to me not to worry about being an under 18 champion, because when you’re 28, that’s when you want to have developed.’’

Threlfall runs about 140km a week and is hoping to step it up to 150km next year and 160km the year after that.

His general working week consists of 8am to 5pm days, but he still finds the time and motivation to train.

‘‘People ask me how can I be bothered getting up and going for a run every morning and I tell them it’s part of the routine,’’ Threlfall said.

‘‘I guess I see training as building a block tower. Every time you go for a run you add a block to your tower and the best looking tower on race day generally wins.’’

And while some people battle to find motivation, he said it was a matter of putting on your runners and leaving the house.

‘‘Even though I’ve been running for six or seven years, it’s exciting times now,’’ he said.

‘‘It’s the purest kind of sport where there’s no equipment.

‘‘It’s one person versus another, running as fast as you can.’’

And the year is not over yet, with Threlfall to compete at the Victorian 5km Championships at Melbourne’s Lakeside Stadium next Thursday as he builds himself towards a marathon.

He said he felt like he could run 2:24 if there were to be a marathon tomorrow, but had to remain patient.

‘‘That’s the goal, just to get an Australian singlet,’’ he said.

‘‘Olympic qualifiers is 2:14 to 2:15, depending on who’s around, and the world champs is 2:17 to qualify.’’

But while it might seem the primary school teacher is entrenched in his training regime, he still found time to take a break and travel to Asia after the Gold Coast event.

‘‘I pretty much didn’t run a step for a week and a half and put on 3kg,’’ he said.

‘‘Sometimes it’s really important not to get too caught up in it and live like a typical 24-year-old male.’’